Tanglewood
by Creign
Summary: When Botan's oar snaps in a freak ferry accident in Demon World, whose there to save her skin but the infamous Makai thief? YoukoxBotan
1. Chapter 1

One

The sparse patches of grass on the forest floor bowed flat against the ground, as if trampled by an invisible force. Botan was careful to avoid the large area of mud to her left as she steered her oar to bank parallel to the floor. The weather recently of recent in the Makai had been downright terrible (not that it had ever been of the sun and sand variety). Still, it pulled at her heartstrings when the souls she ferried had to watch as their own bodies were swept away by rainwater, unclaimed by a loved one.

Her eyes fell to the body scantly ten steps away. Standing at just above twenty feet and nearly four times her width, the deceased was the bullishly built Tabuno, a mountain king infamous in the region for his insatiable greed and thirst for blood. According to his file, he had spent seven hundred and fifty three long years pillaging village after village, striking terror into the souls of neighboring demons. He then carved his infamous lair out of the solid rock in the heart of the Echo Mountains, to the dismay of demon villages in the vicinity. Accepting warriors' calls to battle from all over the area, Tabuno haughtily built a reputation for himself as a tyrant to the weak and an indestructible challenge to the brave. Rumor had it that he took the skulls of the defeated as trophies and stashed them somewhere in his lair.

It was strange. Generally, powerful demons like Tabuno lived well past two thousand, even with their hazardous lifestyles. His time had come prematurely, killed by a powerful foe unforeseen by Spirit World.

His corpse, not yet stiffened by the grips of death, was a gruesome sight to behold. Thick, purple vines wrapped around the demon's limbs, suspending him in a mock-fighting stance. His great, horned head hung from a bent, thick neck (that Botan didn't think she could wrap her hands around, even). Stabbed through the appendage were more vines, coated in blood and sinew. As if as a finishing touch, the vines tapered in size in a ring around his throat and sprouted small, pink flowers. Like a necklace.

Since the plants didn't appear to be of the mountain variety, she supposed Tabuno's murderer must have some control over them, along with a morbid sense of humor.

Right on time, the body began to glow in a manner similar to Yusuke's the resurrection, although Tabuno's energy was red. After a bit struggle, as if his body was forcibly sucking his soul back out of sheer will to live, Tabuno's spirit rose out of his body. An exact, albeit semi-translucent, copy of the demon stood before her, eyeing his deceased form.

"Wha- what's this?" he growled, looking down through his transparent hands.

Botan, already trying to figure out how she was going to ferry such a large being on her oar, quickly responded, "Hello, sir. My name's Botan and I'm a ferry girl for the Spirit World. As I'm sure you've figured out, I'm here to escort you to the next step of your journey."

"No, it's too soon…" he said, voice steadily gaining confidence. "I've got to see him, one last time." His eyes roamed their surroundings, desperately searching for something.

Oh, so he was one of _those _types. She hoped he wasn't going to try and deny her presence. Because on the dead scale, this guy got an A plus.

"I understand that this is hard to comprehend, but you must come with me at this moment."

The demon gave a frustrated shout. "It's not that, it's just… Things can't end like this. I'm the great Tabuno! King of the Mountains!" His voice dwindled, and he met her eyes for the first time. "How could I lose my life to a mere fox?"

Curiosity got the best of her. "If you wouldn't mind me asking, do you know who this fox demon is?" In addition to ferrying souls, it was also her duty to periodically update Koenma on the newest killers in the area who had the potential to end a significant amount of lives and upset the balance of power.

"It was… he…" Tabuno seemed to stumble a bit, his anger giving way. Upon second inspection, Botan was surprised to see that the enormous being was trembling.

"Long white hair, and an immense aura. And his cold, yellow eyes…" Here he trailed off, looking at her. "I don't know his name."

"That's quite alright," she said. "Thank you for your information. Are you ready?"

The great demon took one final, look at his mutilated self, and resigned himself to his fate. He was a heavy soul, but Botan managed to haul him up by the hand while riding on her oar.

"Here we go," she said, cheer back again.

"That fox certainly knows how to add insult to injury." Tabuno grunted, as they lifted off the ground.

The oar took a steep incline, flying fifty feet from the ground. As she was looking down at canopy of trees for a directional guide, Botan noticed a white-clad figure, standing by the hulking form of Tabuno's vine-choked body. The figure looked at the corpse and made a motion with his hand. The violet plant retracted its grip, wilting into the ground. Without its strings, the puppet that was the corpse crumpled to the ground with a thud that roused birds from their nests.

The cold, golden eyes of the demon followed Botan and Tabuno on the oar, until they disappeared behind a low-hanging cloud.

* * *

Botan hopped from her oar and landed delicately on her feet, pleased to feel the firm ground. The last time she'd been in this area of the Makai was a couple months ago, when the area had still been swamped with storm after storm.

This time, the deceased was Unaro, a water nymph of the river. The uncovered parts of her body were covered in iridescent scales that shone a spectrum of colors by the rays of light peeking through the dense canopy overhead. She was dressed in the spiny armor of a water warrior, which always reminded Botan of the spikes of a starfish. Unaro's garments were stained by the blood seeping through a hole in her chest. It seemed as though her heart had been ripped out.

Botan followed the trail of blood a couple feet to her left, where a Venus fly-trap like plant held a bloody ball of gore in its translucent jaw. Yes, the lady was definitely heart-less.

Botan leaned against her oar and took a deep, exaggerated breath of the spring air, as she waited for Unaro's soul to rise. It was gorgeous out here, but she didn't know if she would ever be brave enough to enjoy the vegetation to its fullest, what with all the man-eating plants and all.

Suddenly, she felt someone grip her forearms.

"You! How could you do this to our general?" A fetid smell of rotting fish and Yusuke's socks washed over her face gently. Behind her stood a tall, imposing demon who resembled a goldfish, standing on its flippers.

"You have me mistaken. I didn-"

"Silence!" he screamed, accented with a gurgle on the "sss" sound. "Unaro has no business with you Spirit world people! Let us keep her and we will ensure her honor after the disgrace that was her death!"

Placantly, she said, "Please, I realize death is always a painful thing to admit but-"

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Either that or 'done gwoy mwoy de'at boe sit'. The fish looked enraged, eyes bulging and antennae-like appendages waving in the wind. "You, pathetic apparition, have no choice!"

Maybe it was because this was her fourth case today in which she'd been bodily threatened, or maybe it was because she'd been getting massive cramps the past three days (a sure sign of her period). Perhaps she just hated her job, or the guacamole she had for lunch triggered sporadic periods of insanity, but Botan grew very irritated.

"Don't yell at me!" she yelled. "I'm just doing my job!"

"You can't handle your job! None of you ugly, puny Reikai tramps can." The fish glided over to the body of Unaro, leaving a slimy trail. "You don't deserve to gaze upon the beauty of Unaro. Take your hideously colored blue hair and leave... or I will personally eradicate you from this world!"

"Oh yeah?" Botan shouted, characteristically irked at the hair insult. "You and what army?" She gripped her oar in one hand, ready to show him how useless the Reikai "tramps" really were.

He thrashed his head around, like a fish out of water, and small droplets of water sprayed forth. To Botan's horror, each droplet of water swelled in size and turned into a fish-warrior demon as they hit the ground.

Oh, she just had to go there.

The soul had yet to rise from Unaro's body, and in defense position or not, it was still Botan's duty to ferry the soul, no matter how overprotective the she-warrior's boyfriend was. She couldn't simply turn tail, no matter how appealing the option seemed.

But then… Her insides clenched with fear as the first fish-monster pointed his spear at her.

"Insolent Spirit-world apparition- I'm taking your life for hers!" He drew back his hand and set the spear on a deathly precise path towards her head.

Out of reflex, Botan squeezed her eyes shut and dodged to the left, when she heard a massive crackling. Wind whipped her face, and she tried to open her eyes to see what was happening, only to have them tear up with the dust that had blown around.

She felt an incredible flux of power that knocked the wind out of her, but it was gone as soon as it came.

Finally, after what felt like minutes (although it was really probably five seconds), Botan opened her eyes. The sharp point of the spear was a scant two inches from the tip of her nose.

Jumping a little, she quickly gathered herself and slid out from under the suspended spear. The vine that had halted the weapon, saving her life in the process, was a stark green and it was attached to a starburst of leaves on the floor. The rest of the ground was littered with the bodies of the fish soldiers, all strangled to death by the same strange plant. The growth of the plant was constricted to the forest clearing where she stood.

"You should be more careful, Reikai apparition."

Botan looked above, where a figure loosely robed in white was perched on a low branch. His defined build denoted he was a fighter, while the white ears atop his head detonated he was a demon. If there had been a breeze, she was sure his hair would billow fabulously in the wind. Every bit the stuff teenage girl-demons' dreams were made of.

He jumped in front of her, and she met his golden gaze with a start. They looked awfully familiar. Giving an awkward laugh, she nervously brushed her bangs back from her face.

"Thanks for that. I guess I was being stupid, ahaha…" She peered nervously at the taller demon who was looking at her with mild interest. His body posture displayed no tenseness, even though he'd just slain half a hundred men in one go.

Recognization hit. "We've met before!" she told him. "I ferried the mountain spirit Tabuno a couple months ago. Was that you standing by his corpse?"

The demon with long, silver hair looked with looked to have some faintly recollecting expression. "Oh, him. That dragon skull encrusted throne fetched quite a price."

"Oh… er, I see," Botan was fast sensing that this wasn't the hero in shining armor that he'd appeared to be. "Well, I guess I should get back to my job, now if I can just find my oar…"

She peered around the ground for it, picking through similarly colored twigs. She must've dropped it sometime between the verbal inquisition by Nemo and the running for her life bit.

"You mean this?" The demon was standing before a pile of splinters in the mud, crushing a piece with his foot.

Dread twisted through Botan. No, it couldn't be. That oar was her one ticket out of Demon World. Without it…

She walked towards the demon with a gasp, not wanting to believe her eyes. Without it, she was as good as dead, stranded in a world of unfriendly apparitions, amongst whom she was probably known for taking the souls of their fallen friends.

"You broke it!" she gasped.

"It was already broken," he told her, with a flat expression. "Splintered by a stray thorn of the lionsnare."

Confused, she looked down to see the massive coils of sharply thorned vines littering the ground, vines she was sure hadn't been there before.

Desolation filled her. He'd spoken the truth. What she going to do now?

Botan's gaze fell to the ground to her right, traced an invisible path to her left, before she mustered the courage to look the demon in the eye.

"Hi, I'm Botan. Maybe… perhaps… could I stay with you?"

* * *

A/N: Don't own yuyu.


	2. Chapter 2

He eyed her with distaste. The Reikei apparition's clothes were tattered from stray cuts of lionsnare and her blue hair was streaky from dried river water. She looked pathetic, defenseless.

Residual energy stirred in his fist. It would be easy to give her a quick death. Without her oar, he knew, she would be stranded in the worst of places in demon world. Hungry apparitions would make quick work of her.

In his other fist, he clenched the jewel he'd stolen from the deceased she-warrior's armor. It was a large pearl, called the Diamond of the River, capable of giving common demons the ability to breathe underwater for periods of time. It would fetch an enormous price.

The jewel was part of his original plan. The girl, however, was a surprise factor.

Kurama had planned on getting to the body before Spirit World's carriers arrived. She'd beaten him to it.

It mattered little. He would think of it as a bonus.

Plenty of demons in the black market sought out girls for slave labor. The fact that she was a Reikei, stranded, would only bolster her price. If Spirit World came calling for retribution, as they no doubt would, it would be the buyer they'd deal with, leaving Kurama with the gold.

"As you wish," he told her.

* * *

Botan was swimming in the depths of an ocean gorge, dark and lightless except for the occasional glow worm, floating along stray currents. As far as her eye could see and extending in all directions was black water. Water and nothing else.

But where was the surface? Up above, but what if she was upside down?

Exhaling, she hoped to follow the bubble of air. Instead of an amorphous pocket of oxygen though, a goldfish came out of her nose. Its friendly, mermaid like fins and cheerfully orange scales quickly underwent a brutal transformation, as the tiny fish swelled into a fish warrior in black spine-armor.

"Give me your life!" It gurgled at her in a high pitched voice while its flesh melted away to its spine. The first vertebrae sharpened into a deadly point.

Botan opened her mouth to scream, and water rushed in. She scissor kicked, and yet she wasn't moving. Her lungs hurt…

The spirit apparition sat up straight in bed, taking deep, gasping breaths. Sweet, sweet oxygen.

"Oh look, Kuronue, it's finally up."

Botan was swathed in sheets and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Along the perimeter of her bed were the figures of four demons of different statures, all bearing the same hungry expression.

One of them, a tall demon whose body looked almost human save for his green hair and tribal tattoos, reached for her arm. "It's a bit scrawny. I think we should cure it."

Cure her arm? But she wasn't sick.

"I'm in the mood for some hot pot. Let's boil it up, and serve it with sauce!" added another one, built like a small rhinoceros.

That one garnered a chorus of laughs, and Botan's stomach sank.

"It" was she. They were going to eat her. Oh, dear King Enma! Where was the exit in this room? A frantic search produced the immense glass-covered hole in the ceiling as the best solution. Then she remembered her oar was a pile of splinters laid to rest in one of the forests at the base of Echo Mountain #6.

She was in the fox demon's lair. It had been a long journey to the isolated underground hideout where he camped. She'd passed out the minute he left her to her room. It was a foolish move on her part to assume the demon lived alone; it was a foolish move to leave her safety to chance.

"I say we spit roast it. Nothing like barbeque on a nice, sunny afternoon." She looked to her left and saw an imposing demon with black hair peeking out of a buckled hat. His well-defined arms had leather bands wrapped around them, and were those wings on his back? All in all, a good bondage slave get-up.

Noticing her gaze, he flashed her a wicked grin, revealing fangs a vampire bat would be jealous of. "Hey there sweetheart, I'm Kuronue."

He yanked her out of bed without warning, and suddenly her nose getting up close and personal with the back of his vest. Hanging over his shoulder, she felt more than saw him turn and walk out of the room through a hidden passageway in the corner. The group followed.

"No!" she wailed. She was so stupid. Of course Kurama brought her back to his evil lair to feed her to his minions. "Don't barbeque me; I don't taste good!"

Green shot Rhino a grin. "Let us be the judge of that," Kuronue told her. She could feel the back of his ribcage vibrate as he spoke.

She thrashed for her life, pounding in a stereotypical damsel-in-distress manner on his back. "Kurama!" she shouted.

"Aw, screaming for its savior," the green-haired demon said mockingly.

Ignoring him, Botan continued as the group turned the corner, and Botan saw that the stone panels of the floor had become white tiles. They were obviously taking her to the kitchens.

"Kurama, you jerk! How could you?"

She gathered her strength and clung on to the edge of the wall. "If your men eat me, I swear, I will haunt you for the rest of your life! And trust me it will be a long, long six-"

Oops. She better not reveal that Spirit World had estimates for each demon's lifespan up in the library reserves.

"Relax. Anger sours the flesh," Rhino nudged her.

Kuronue set her down on her feet, and blood rushed to her head. Before she could get purchase on the tiles to run, he had grabbed her by her shoulders, and the green haired man pulled her off the floor by her ankles.

To her horror, there was vat of hot, boiling water to her right. A Botan-sized vat of hot boiling water. When she was little, she'd always had been told to do her spiritwork, or she'd be eaten alive by bad demons. Now, she fervently wished she was a child again.

"Alright, Hino. And one, and two…" The two began to swing her left and right in a pendant motion. Her body gathered momentum, and she could feel her hair getting caught in the ties on the front of Kuronue's vest.

Spying a kitchen knife lying on the counter, her desperate mind formulated a desperate plot. One whose success depended totally on her timing.

As the swung her away from the cauldron, she quickly twisted and grabbed the knife. Against all odds (namely, the two demons swinging her like a hammock in the wind), she managed to sink it into the bat demon's arm. Alright! Botan one, demons none.

"Ouch," he said, and held her weight with his one, injured arm to remove the knife with another. "You wound me. I thought we had a good thing going."

The wound did not affect him at all; the cut was closed up in front of her eyes. What was it that Koenma was telling her about regenerative abilities and demons B-class and up? Uh-oh. These weren't a lowly band of D-class minions Kurama was leading, after all.

"Quick, Buyou. Salt the water before we toss her in!" Kuronue said with positively glee.

The two demons released her and her body went sailing through the air, headed right for the cauldron. Botan squeezed her eyes shut, preparing her soul for the journey to Reikai. If she could get there, that was.

To her relief, a pair of arms caught her before she could be scalded like a carrot.

"Kuronue, don't be an idiot." The low voice of Kurama sounded from above her. He looked irritated enough to kill something. She'd never been happier to see him in her life.

"Aw, you're such a spoil sport. I wasn't really going to let her boil," Kuronue told his leader as the other demons improved their posture in his presence.

"Sir, you should've seen her face when I said we were boiling her," Rhino told Kurama, and the green haired man's lip twitched. Although still talking about eating her, both demons seemed exponentially less crude than they had been minutes ago.

"I think she liked my roast idea more, Buyou." Green snapped his jaws at her, grinning, and Botan shrank back. No way she was losing a limb to those monsters he called teeth.

She couldn't help but wonder what Kurama thought of his rowdy minions. Maybe he was irritated with them for scaring her? Or even the tiniest bit angry and protective of her? She looked up at his amber eyes.

… Not a chance.

Although his countenance was every bit as bored and unamused as it always was, a glimmer of sadistic pleasure in his eyes gave his real thoughts away. If anything, he looked like he wanted to toss her into the vat, if only to see her burn.

"There are new artifacts in the drawing room to be taken care of," Kurama said, his voice level in a back-to-business sort of way. He set Botan on her feet besides him. Immediately, she took three steps away from the demons and the boiling vat next to them.

Buyou and Hino nodded before disappearing behind a turn in the hallway.

Kurama turned his gaze to Batman, who sighed in a resigned fashion.

"We wouldn't have eaten you, you know," he told her. His wings shifted as he bent down to be eye level with her. He disappeared.

Boton breathed a sigh of relief. After the initial scare of meeting everyone, things could only get better… right?


End file.
